


industry

by CorvidFeathers



Series: kill your heroes [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Guns, Manipulation, Mentors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 16:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvidFeathers/pseuds/CorvidFeathers
Summary: In Ank'harel, Ripley rambles, Kynan worries, and the inexorable creep of Percy's inventions begins.





	industry

**Author's Note:**

> I was (and still am) very behind on CR season two last year, but happened to catch one episode with a friend which dealt with an industrial town in the Dwendelion Empire/showcased the spread of gun technology in the years since season one. I was very inspired.
> 
> This fits into the timeline of my unfinished Kynan and Ripley fic (and was written partially as a rewrite of an unpublished chapter) but I think it stands up alright on its own.

The merchant mercenary had cut Ripley’s palm to the bone, and it bled through the bandages Kynan had bound it with in seconds. Ripley hardly seemed to notice; she ordered their cadre of mercenaries back to their lodgings, and set off down the alleyway the other direction at a brisk pace, beckoning Kynan after her.

He followed, brushing his hands against his tunic. They were still smudged with black powder. He could still feel the recoil of the shot, and the crackle of Cabal’s Ruin’s power humming through his fingers. What if he hadn’t taken that shot? Death, and failure had been in jaw’s reach of them. What would he have done? It seemed just the sort of cruel trick the gods would play with him; to let him get close enough to nearly touch his goals, only to have another hero stripped from him.

No thoughts of her own mortality seemed to bother Ripley as she stroud down the streets of Ank’harel. She’d taken up another disguise; not as elaborate as the one she had worn when Kynan met her. Merely herself, but older, with more white in her hair, and her metal arm cloaked in the illusion of flesh.

“We have one more piece of business to attend to today,” she said. “It regards our other purpose in coming to Ank’harel. The distribution of the technology we hold.”

“Who are we going to sell it to?” Kynan asked. Ripley had spoken about this before, but he wasn’t sure how she planned it play it. Open up a market stall? The idea was ludicrous, and dangerous. Technology like that had to be spread carefully. But how would they know who to approach? Who would be interested in such creations? Plenty of people. Who of them could be trusted to use them responsibly?

Even beginning to answer that question seemed impossible.

Ripley’s eyes were already alight, glimmering gunmetal and smoke in the afternoon light. “Many people. But for now… let’s start with a weaponsmith.”

Her smile was a terrible thing, but Kynan had never trusted anything so much in his life.

 

* * *

 

By the time the deal was done and the blueprints changed hands, the sun was sinking red towards the streets of Ank’harel. Kynan followed Ripley out into the incarnadine light, something heavy and sick resting against his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was the exchange he had just heard, or the journey ahead weighing on him, or the way Ripley’s step was slightly staggering.

“In the Empire- in Wildmount, where I grew up,” she said, as they made their way through the shuttered market stalls. “There was a town, not far from where I was born, devoted to industry. Industry, and the military might of the Empire.” She laughed, and the sound was high and fanatic. “When my father came to trade, I loved to stand and watch the construction of the siege machines- the pride of the Dwendelion Empire, rising from the ground in a day or less.” She shook her head. “Standing on the hills overlooking the city, seeing the smoke rise, feeling the ground shake under my feet as the machine spit fire and stones into the fields… watching a machine rise, almost like reanimation, from the dirt of the field, in a day or less… I understood what made the Empire the unassailable force of power it is.”

Kynan quickened his step to keep pace with Ripley, eyeing her out of the corner of his eyes. Her face was animated, eye alight in with the glow of the sinking sun, bloodstained hand reaching out as if she could touch the images she was conjuring with her words. She swayed a little as she walked- drunk, or feverish maybe, he couldn’t tell. But there was something about her words, something about the terrible weight of them, that made him dread to listen further, and dread interrupting her even more.

“I would have served the Empire,” she murmured, lips quiet. “Maybe I was misled, but I would have gladly served them! So long as I could serve that innovation as well.” Her eyes cut over to him, and she seemed to remember a little more of where she was, and who she was speaking to. “We’re all misled in our youth, Kynan,” she said, with a shake of her head and a bitter laugh. “Oh, I would have served the Empire, but they cast my out. I was a loyal servant to the king and he spit upon my innovations, my research, my life’s work! He would have put me to the death.” The words spilled out in a bitter, hateful torrent; she spat them at the street, her fist clenching.

She started to laugh again, a low, chilling sound. “But now… now these inventions… my innovations… will spread across all of Exandria. Will spread to Wildmount- I’ve made sure of that. There’s no way to stop the flow of innovation; once the cut is made, it bleeds through cities, through countries, through communities in months. Days, even. And one day… King Bertrand will feel the same awe I did, standing before my inventions, as I did in those fields so long ago, and the world will shake under his feet, and he will know, he has met his match.”

The feeling constricting Kynan’s chest was half fondness and half dread. Not for the first time, the feeling that Ripley was capable of a good deal more than was right settled over him. And yet, and yet… The way her pale eyes caught the light, the way she slipped her arm into his as he held out his hand when she stumbled.

Ripley was not all good, but Kynan could keep her in check. Just as he trusted her to do the same to him. It was not an easy, or a clean job that they had taken upon themselves; it was bringing down people the world saw as heroes, and that required desperate measures.

Kynan would not let those desperate measures tear apart their souls. Not the blueprints, not the demon lurking within Ripley’s eyes, not his own guilt and self-doubt.


End file.
